I Survived Black Friday

When I was growing up, we never shopped on Black Friday; my parents considered the crowds more than enough reason to avoid the stores, and often we were driving back from my grandmother's house anyway. A few years ago, Tom and I tried to go to Best Buy at around 11 AM on Black Friday to get one of their big specials, and we were all but laughed at--they had sold out hours ago.

This year, one of the bulletin boards I frequent carried reports from across the country of people camping out in front of Best Buy on Thanksgiving day, in hopes of getting cheap laptops and computers when the store opened at 5 AM the next morning. Personally, I woke at 6:33, and one of my first thoughts was, "I'm glad I'm not shopping."

I did, however, venture to Toys R Us just before 11. To my surprise and delight, I found 2 of the 3 deeply discounted items I was looking for and, despite the throngs of people, managed to get out of the store in 20 minutes. When I got home, I had an email from someone in the local moms group telling me she had seen the Animal Hospital at Target that I had complained about being unable to find--and since it was the last one in stock, she had bought it for me. It made me happy to know that an acquaintance was looking out for me. Later in the afternoon, I ventured out to Target myself to pick up a few more things and discovered the serious crowds had mostly died down.

On the way home, to celebrate being almost done with Christmas shopping, I treated myself to a peppermint mocha from Starbucks. I know that Christmas isn't just about presents--but at the same time, I'm looking forward to seeing Ben enjoy his new toys on Christmas morning.